David S. Followill, Ph.D. 1991, The University of Texas-Houston, GSBS The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Department of Radiation Physics Contact Information

Research Interests:

• Radiation dosimetry in and outside of the primary treatment fields
• Health care quality assurance as applied to multicenter clinical trial studies
• Development of quality assurance tools and methods

My research interests focus on the activities of the RPC. Supported by the NCI and NEI grants, the RPC is responsible for monitoring radiotherapy facilities participating in interinstitutional cooperative clinical trials funded by the NCI and NEI. In collaboration with Drs. William Hanson and Geoffrey Ibbott (this department), my efforts are directed at improving quality assurance audits and minimizing dosimetry errors encountered at the participating facilities. Our group is focused on the design and development of quality assurance tolls and methods to improve the radiation dosimetry for clinical trials. Another interest of mine involves the calculation and measurement of radiation doses outside of the primary treatment field and then correlating those doses with secondary effects.

Depending on the student's interest, a tutorial in my laboratory would provide experience with radiation dosimetry and the compilation and analysis of generic trend data for use a QA tools, the measurement of doses outside of the primary treatment field and development of software tools to analyze radiation dosimetry data gathered from use of our anthropomorphic phantoms.

Publications

Program Affiliation:

Program in Medical Physics